Drugs for the treatment of cancer, cytostatics, and the like, constitute serious health risks to pharmacy staff and oncology nurses that handle and administer them. Carmel Pharma AB, Sweden have developed a range of drug delivery systems commercially available under the registered trademark PhaSeal® for the handling and administration of hazardous liquid drugs. PhaSeal® delivery systems can be viewed online at www.phaseal.com.
Commonly owned PCT International Application No. PCT/IL2006/000881 entitled Liquid Drug delivery System and published under PCT International Publication No. WO 2007/015233 illustrates and describes a liquid drug delivery system for sterile or aseptic handling.
Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,238,372 to Zinger et al., the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, illustrates and describes fluid control devices for administration of liquid drugs. U.S. '372 FIGS. 1 to 19 illustrate fluid control devices including a housing with a syringe port for receiving a syringe, a vial adapter port with a vial adapter for snap fit receiving a vial, and a drug administration port for administering a liquid drug.
U.S. '372 FIGS. 11 to 15 illustrate fluid control devices having vial adapter ports with vial adapters intended to be rotationally detached after a mixing procedure whereupon the detached vial adapters are intended to be discarded together with spent vials. Such fluid control devices are commercially available under the registered trademark MIXJECT® from Medimop Medical Projects Ltd., Ra'anana, Israel. MIXJECT® product information is available at http://www.westpharma.com/products/medimop/Information/mixject.pdf. However, vial adapter detachment leaves open pathways which may lead to leakage of residual liquid drug thereby posing a possible health risk in the case of mixing of hazardous liquid drugs.